Eating Your Words 2010: The Winner!

Given the extraordinary caliber of creativity displayed by the entries for Eating Your Words 2010, Jennifer of Savor the Thyme and I were happy to cede the task of picking a winner to our esteemed guest judge, Andrew Zimmern. After days of deep deliberation, one entry finally spoke clearly above all the others . . .

Caroline's clever little confections perfectly mimicked this beloved word game and gave new meaning to the phrase 'playing with your food' - all the while letting the food do the talking! The message wasn't lost on Andrew, who wrote:

"Caroline's Scrabble board takes the cake for four reasons:

1. 'Zimmern' is worth almost 100 points in Scrabble;

2. I respect the artist's restraint. With the remaining letters, I would have been tempted to spell 'wiener' and/or 'poop';

3. Who doesn't like Meyer lemon cookies?

4. Hello Mister Zimmern, Pick Me . . . simply genius. "

Congratulations, Caroline! Your winning entry will appear on Andrew's blog and you will receive an aebleskiver pan from Aunt Else's Aebleskiver. We hope that you and your family will enjoy the many delicious treats you will undoubtedly create with this beautiful piece of cookware. Perhaps you'll share with us some Brazilian-Filipino fillings for the pancake balls . . . ?

There were so many fabulous entries that Andrew really did have a tough time making a final choice and as such, also gave us his runners-up for honorable mentions:

After composing a love poem, who wouldn't love consuming the poetic composition?

We had a few entries that unfortunately didn't quite meet the rules for prize eligibility, but one caught Andrew's eye: the Andy Warhol-esque mushroom image from Sanura at My Life Runs on Food. Sometimes, a picture is worth quite a few words.

Congratulations to Caroline and the honorable mentions, as well as to all of our participants. Also, Jennifer and I would like to express our deep gratitude to Andrew Zimmern, for taking on the challenge of choosing from among such an outstanding pool of entries, and to Chad Gillard and Aunt Else's Aebleskiver, whose generosity allowed us to present a prize worthy of the imagination and hardwork that went into these incredible submissions.

Oh Girl-you amazing woman, button maker, co-brainstormer, writer etc.:THANK YOU!! Oh, I have some ideas already brewing for Eating your Words 2011! I ditto the congrats to Caroline, Phyllis, Meaghan and Sanura, and to all of our participants. And I mean really, a zillion (as my son says) thanks to Chef Zimmern and Aunt Else's Aebleskiver

WOW, can't believe I actually won!! Actually, just glad I got to participate since I missed out on last year's! Thanks for this very fun challenge, my kids & I had lots of fun and can't wait for next year. In the meantime, pancake balls for everyone!! :)

Wow - that scrabble board looks so cool! I'm definitely keeping that in mind for Dad's next birthday...he's not a huge cake fan, but a huge scrabble fan - it was one of the only board games we could convince him to play with us when we were kids.

The Scrabble cookie one really jumped out at me too, the amount of work that went in to that must have been phenomenal. It's a work of art. All the entries were fun, whimsical and creative. Great job everyone!! And thanks for hosting such a fun event!

I thought that was a winner too...it was the best! YAY!! Congras Caroline!! Brilliantly done. Congrats Phyllis, Meaghan and Sarah too. Thank you Jennifer and Tracey for hosing this beautiful challenge!

Thank you all for such wonderful comments and congratulations to our winner and participants. I wish I could blame a hectic weekend for my lack of individual replies, but it was really just due to beautiful weather and the need to be outdoors under bright sunlight!

But the week begins again and I'll be back in blogging and commenting form again! 8-)

Wowie! Has it been a whole year since the last Eat Your Words?! Goodness.

The entries are fantastic, and the Scrabble board definitely deserved the win, in hours of prep time alone. Add to that Meyer lemon, and it was a no brainer. Not to take anything away from Andrew Zimmern, of course! ;)